Whatever You Do, Don’t Breathe

No, I’m not suggesting you hold your breath until the Corporate America Kickstarter goes live. (Even though it’s almost close enough to be safe–it’s going up Monday!)

I’m just trying to share some of the wisdom I’ve learned from working on movies for the Corporate America Kickstarter over the past two weeks. Last time, I gave you a sneak peek at what the main movie will look like. Working on that (which I’m still doing, actually) has mostly taught me that I look ridiculously stupid on any single still frame of a video. I guess it also taught me about cutting and sound design and how you should always get waaaaaaay more footage than you think.

But one of my focuses this week has been to get a few tutorial videos set up for Corporate America. Sure, there are the written rules, but honestly, who reads these days? People want something they can watch, something that’s told to them. So, I spent hours recording and editing videos explaining how the game works.

After recording, though, I made the discovery that between sentences, I breathe. And I don’t mean I inhale a little, I mean I take a breath like I’m about to dive into a lake in an attempt to rescue a baby from a car that’s sinking ever deeper. And needless to say, you can hear it.

I’ve also discovered that people don’t like that for some reason. You’d think that hearing someone breathe would give people comfort, but no. My theory is that most people hear breathing, and they think human. Sure, humans are alright to have lunch with or engage in conversation, but do you really trust them to provide you with a quality product?

No, you want something more perfect than that: a corporation. Corporations don’t make mistakes. They’re available for customer service 24/7, not that you’d need customer service when dealing with a corporation anyway. And most importantly, corporations don’t breathe.

Now, if you watch the game details video below, you’ll notice you hear no breathing. In fact, the pauses between sentences are as silent and peaceful as a still night in the desert. That’s because I painstakingly removed all sound from between sentences. I also added subtitles, since I want to make sure people can get a clear understanding of what I’m saying (and I want to trick people who wanted to watch a video into reading at least a little).

You’ll also notice a few places where my speaking is a little strange. That’s not just because I wanted to correct some hesitations or fumbles I made while reciting the whole tutorial… it’s also to make me sound a little more like a robot. I think that will comfort people. Can you think of anything that makes you feel more secure than the cobbled together thoughts of an automated phone robot when you call your bank or check your voice mail? I sure can’t?

Alright, enough of drawing this out for you… here’s the video!

Hope you found it interesting and enjoyable. In fact, I’d love to hear what you think about it. If you haven’t played the game before, do you think you could probably play through it now? If you have played the game, did I miss anything important I should have covered?

Ok, fine, I’ll admit that I don’t think the breathing was actually a problem because people prefer robots or corporations to provide them with goods and services. I know that the real reason people don’t like the breathing is because, being right behind the camera as I recorded, those deep breaths give people the impression that I’m whispering how to play the game into their ear, and at each pause I linger as much as I can, taking a nice, long, deep breath, inhaling as much of them as I can, and that creeps people out. I’m still not sure why it creeps people out, though.

Alright, stay tuned… Corporate America goes up on Kickstarter on Monday! I hope you’re half as excited as I am!